UJA Appeal for Ethiopian Jews Has Met Three-fourths of Goal

The United Jewish Appeal’s emergency cash drive to collect $40 million to aid Ethiopian Jews airlifted to Israel has already received close to $30 million, said Gerald Nagel, a UJA spokesman.

The $40 million is part of at least $130 million that American Jewry is being asked to provide to help Israel with the first-year costs of absorbing over 14,000 new Ethiopian immigrants.

The Ethiopian Jewry campaign will be part of Operation Exodus, the continuing campaign to assist Soviet Jewish immigration and absorption.

UJA, the national fund-rasing arm of the Jewish community which raises funds in partnership with local Jewish federations, is working to raise $450 million this year for Soviet Jews. That sum is in addition to the more than $420 million raised last year in the first phase of Operation Exodus.